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USS Hanson Conducts Shore Fires in Support of Operation Sea Dragon in Vietnam
Published 1 years ago
Historic color combat footage from the Vietnam war captures the USS Hanson (DD/DDR-832) participating in the 1966 Operation Sea Dragon in South Vietnam.
For the history buffs, here's a TL;DR of Operation Sea Dragon. The operation was carried out over the course of two years by the U.S. Navy to interdict sea lines of communications and logistics operations by the NVA. In the video above specifically, we're seeing the beginning of Operation Sea Dragon taking place near the Quang Tri Province of Vietnam. The operation was initially labeled as non-productive, however over the course of it's two year lifespan raids had been conducted as far as 230 miles north of the DMZ to the 20th parallel with Seventh Fleet calculating that after one year of operations that Sea Dragon had destroyed or damaged 2,000 NVA logistics craft and a large number of other pieces of inland military infrastructure.
The ship in the video is the DD/DDR-832 USS Hanson which was a Gearing-class destroyer that was decommissioned by the US Navy in 1973. Shortly after being decommissioned by the Navy, she saw another 33-years of sea service for the Republic of China as the Liao Yang (DDG-921). In 2006, the Republic of China used the decommissioned Gearing-class destroyer as a target ship during Han Kuang, a Taiwanese national armed forces joint exercise.
